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SAN ANTONIO - Despite scorching Texas heat, little rest between games and a smaller team than most, the Armed Forces Hawaii Futbol Club brought home second place in the Defender’s Cup at the South Texas Area Regional Soccer Complex in San Antonio, Aug. 29 through Sept. 1, 2014.
According to Luis Zamora, an electrician’s mate aboard USS Chafee and club co-founder, the Armed Forces Hawaii FC was the first Hawaii team to compete in the Defender’s Cup. The competition was hosted this year by Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland Air Force Base and LAFB Warhawks Soccer.
A total of 38 teams entered the Defender’s Cup, many with the standard 22 allotted players. The club, however, lost several team members due to operational commitments, and competed with a mere 16 players.
Several coaches at the competition even told interim coach and co-founder Jay Reynard, an information systems technician with Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific, the team “can’t win or go far” because of the minimal number of players.
“It was quite an experience to show them the quality we have here,” Reynard said.
The club played a total of eight games, finishing 6-2. Reynard attributed the first loss to first-game jitters.
“After that we just rolled through all the teams,” he said. “We were the only team to play against the top five teams in the competition as far as seatings and we beat all of them except for one.”
The club was one game away from victory when they went up against Irwin Futbol Club, based out of Fort Irwin in California. But by then, his team had just finished playing the previous game that same morning. He said the players had at most 45 minutes to rest before the championship game. On top of that, the exhausted players did not have enough people to substitute throughout the game.
“The heat and the exhaustion pretty much just got the better of us,” said Zamora, of Boca Raton, Fla.
Reynard said although the team dominated most of the game, they missed several goal opportunities. By the 88th minute, Irwin FC managed to score a goal, winning the championship game, 1-0.
“It was a heart-breaker to lose,” Reynard said. “But that’s how soccer’s played. You can dominate a game for 90 minutes and that 91st minute, (one freak accident) and then it’s in back of the net. Kudos to them for keeping us at bay so long to where they had that one chance.”
The Armed Forces Hawaii FC walked away with a second place trophy and individual medals. They plan to compete again next year. In the meantime, the team will make additional visits to the bases to recruit new players, as they will be losing members due to regular military rotational moves.
The club plans to visit Marine Corps Base Hawaii again, where they previously recruited two Marines this year, including Nixon Keago, of Houston.
Keago, who’s been playing soccer since the age of 4, said he likes playing because it takes multiple people working together toward a goal. He agreed the heat and lack of players made competing in the cup more challenging.
“It was definitely one of the best soccer experiences I’ve ever had,” Keago said. “We haven’t played in (heat that strong). We didn’t have enough substitutes so we were going, playing 90 minutes straight but we worked through it. It was good.”
The club is currently playing in the Hawaii Ranger League season. Next month, the team is slated to compete in the primary qualifying rounds for the Major Island Soccer Organization Open Robledo Cup.
Even though they will be losing players they will at least have a few veterans staying on for a few more years, like Pablo Hoosier, who works in security forces at the 647th Security Forces Squadron. Hoosier said he plans to stay with Armed Forces Hawaii FC for the next few years he’s stationed in Hawaii.
“I would love to continue (playing with the club) and go next year for the Defender’s Cup and take the gold next year,” Hoosier said. “That’s what we’re aiming for and that’s what we’re going to keep pushing toward.”
| Date Taken: | 09.19.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 09.19.2014 15:11 |
| Story ID: | 142746 |
| Location: | SAN ANTONIO, TX, US |
| Hometown: | BOCA RATON, FL, US |
| Hometown: | HOUSTON, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 148 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Armed Forces Hawaii FC takes second place in Defender's Cup, by Kristen Wong, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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